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Chapter 381: The Legend of Azkaban and Slytherin
🕑 Added 2019-01-31 21:04:36 +0000 UTCEvan wrote to his parents while listening to Mr. Weasley and Sirius talking.
“I still remember Jorkins. She was at Hogwarts when I was, two years above me." Sirius recalled, "An idiot, very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It’s not a good combination!”
"She could drive one insane; she had been working with me for a while!" Mr. Weasley said, frowning. "She was not bad, just not too helpful. As you can see in the report, she causes more trouble than she solves."
“Which department is she in now?” Sirius asked.
“I have been in the Department of International Magical Cooperation for many years, and then I don't know why, suddenly Barty..."
Mr. Weasley paused and realized that he should not mention the name in front of Evan, and hastily shifted the topic, "She moved to the Department of Magical Games and Sports not long ago. In short, over the years, she has been driven from one department to another, and only Ludo Bagman was willing to have her. Ludo is a good man. He helped me get tickets for the World Cup.”
“Where is she now?” Evan interjected. “I want to see her.”
“What do you have to do with Jorkins?” Sirius frowned, and when he saw Evan’s expression, he immediately understood what it was. He said seriously. “Well, I know you suspect Crouch. That's all right with your reasoning just now. But now we should concentrate on removing the curse on your wrist. After breaking it, I will help you to investigate him, I promise!"
“You have no chance to see her now!" Mr. Weasley said, "After this biting cactus event, she went abroad on holiday, and she won’t probably come back before a few weeks. Ludo thinks she needs to breathe more fresh air and wake up!”
Evan’s heart thumped, if Bertha Jorkins set out on holiday in the Forests of Albania, then she might have been caught by Voldemort.
This was not good. Now she could be getting tortured by Voldemort.
It was only a matter of time before Voldemort knew that his most devoted follower was still alive and had successfully fled Azkaban.
But without the help of Peter Pettigrew, and without Quirrell to share his body with him, Voldemort should have great difficulty in coming back to save Barty Crouch Jr. He was just a powerless soul who couldn’t do anything.
Just as Evan was pondering, a memo zoomed in through the open door, slowly falling in front of Sirius. He opened it doubtfully.
"Dumbledore has talked to Fudge, and he's got permission to enter Azkaban!" Sirius said, "He's waiting for us below."
Evan speeded up writing the letter to his parents, and also a letter to Professor Lupin, in which he specifically asked him to pay attention to Barty Crouch’s movements.
He handed the letters to Mr. Weasley and, after saying goodbye, returned to the lift.
“How can we get to Azkaban?" Evan asked curiously. "Is it Apparition?"
“Like Hogwarts, that place prohibits Apparition and any other spell that can sneak into it." Sirius said, "Many spells have been cast on Azkaban to prevent prisoners from escaping and being found by others, but the Ministry of Magic has a Portkey to that place."
"Where on earth is Azkaban?"
“Nobody knows,” Sirius said. “Although I have been there for more than a decade and managed to escape, I only know that it is on an island in the North Sea.”
He paused for a while and continued. "I was floating in the sea with a piece of wood. I could only recognize the approximate direction and had swam for a long time before returning to land."
The history of Azkaban, the Wizard Prison, was known to be dating back to half a Millennia.
There were many stories about this famous prison that couldn’t be told for a few days and nights. Because of the many Dark wizards who had been imprisoned, and the large number of Dementors gathered, it had played a very important role in the history of magic and had been repeatedly mentioned.
After the underground ruins incident, Evan searched a lot of historical materials about Slytherin himself a few days ago.
Among them, he found a very interesting record!
Surprisingly, the founder of Azkaban was mentioned to be probably Salazar Slytherin himself.
A thousand years ago, he proposed to the then Presbyterian Church (the predecessor of the Ministry of Magic) to build a prison for the detention of Dark wizards, and then led the prison construction project.
Slytherin personally laid out a lot of magic on Azkaban, and also provided a large amount of Galleons to maintain the daily operation of the prison.
Of course, these were not the main points. What interested Evan was that, according to legend, Slytherin had traveled around the European continent after leaving Hogwarts, but he was likely to spend his later years in that place.
According to the information from the underground relics, Slytherin left with the body and brain of the nightmare God he had cut into pieces. If that prison mentioned in the records was indeed Azkaban, and if he had lived in seclusion there in his later years, would there be a part of the body of the evil god?
(Translator Note: Azkaban was mentioned by the J.K Rowling in Pottermore to have existed since the 15th century, and to be originally home to a little-known sorcerer who called himself Ekrizdis. Here, the author might be skipping Pottermore information all together, basing his work solely on the books, or deeming the words of the author as vague enough for him to introduce a hidden history behind them.)
Evan touched the Locket on his chest. If he had left any traces there, he might find clues to the Key to Slytherin’s Secret Treasure.
Even if not, he might be able to improve his magic as he did last time.
Secondly, he was now very interested in the evil spirits. According to the evil god he had seen in the illusion of the Centaurs’ colony, it had many companions.
Evan wanted to study these horrifying creatures from the void, looking for ways to deal with them. The evil spirits were summoned and locked away by ancient warlocks, but this guy who had been defeated and studied by Slytherin was the best goal.
It did not come from the void, and was probably created by Herpo the Foul himself. It was not that powerful, and would not make Evan feel powerless!
Evan and Sirius took the lift down and quickly returned to the main hall.
Now, because it was past the rush hour, there were not many people there.
The golden grilles slid open, and Evan saw the golden statues in the fountain from a distance. No one came in and they continued down.
“Department of Mysteries!" said the cool female voice, and left it at that.
“This way, Evan!" Sirius pushed him out of the lift. "This is the most mysterious department of the Ministry of Magic. We have to continue down. I've only been here once before, thirteen years ago, to be judged and sent to Azkaban."
